Mine to Take (Mine 1)

***

“Skye.” Saying her name was hard. So much harder than it should have been.

Trace tried to move his arms, but found that they were strapped down. His throat ached, burned, and it sure as hell seemed like someone had driven a fucking stake through his chest.

A stake…or a bullet.

“Take it easy, Weston.” A familiar voice advised him. “You just came out of surgery. They took the tube out of your throat three minutes ago. Just slow the hell down, okay?”

A tube? That would explain the burn in his throat.

Trace forced his eyes to open. Again, the small act was too damn hard. But he opened them, and he locked his gaze on Detective Griffin’s. “Skye.” He said her name again because she was the only thing that mattered.

But at her name, Alex looked away.

Where is she? She’d been with him in the alley. He remembered her holding onto him. She’d been in the ambulance, too. He’d hated the look of fear in her eyes.

“We’re looking for her,” Alex said. His voice cracked. Not good. “I’ve got an APB out now—every cop in the city is searching for her.”

Searching for her…

The machines around him began to beep frantically.

Alex hurried toward the side of the bed. “Take it easy. Jesus, man, calm down.”

He couldn’t be fucking serious. Trace tried to push up in the bed.

“You’re bleeding again! Stop!” Alex pushed the call button for the nurse, then he locked his hands around Trace’s shoulders. The detective shoved him back against the bed. “They just dug a bullet out of you. You can’t go racing out of here now!”

Yes, he could. Trace had to get to Skye.

The lines on Alex’s face became deeper. “We’re going to find her.”

How had they lost her? How?

Alex exhaled on a rough sigh. “She was in the hospital. I-I saw the security video just a little while ago. Some guy in a doctor’s coat came up to her. He injected her with something that knocked her out. Then the cocky bastard just put her in a wheel chair and pushed her right out the doors.”

No.

“No one even stopped him. Didn’t ask a single damn question. He took her out the emergency exit. There were two guards there, and he just took her.”

The machines were shrieking now.

Two nurses ran into the room. The male nurse demanded, “What are you doing to the patient?”

The other nurse—female, a redhead—hurried toward the bed. When she got close enough, Trace grabbed her wrist. “Get me…out…”

“No, no, sir.” Her brown eyes became saucer sized. “You can’t leave!”

The male nurse pulled out a needle and added something to Trace’s IV bag. “This will help calm you down.”

No. He didn’t need to be calm. I need Skye.

“Take it easy,” the redhead told him. “You have to rest and recover.”

Resting was the last thing he needed to do. He had to get out there and find Skye. “Doc…tor…”

“The doctor will come to see you soon,” the redhead reassured him as Trace’s fingers slid lifelessly away from her wrist. He could feel the cold touch of the drugs slipping through his veins. “Sleep…” The nurse told him.

I can’t sleep. Skye needs me.

“We’ll find her,” Alex told him, but the cop’s voice seemed far away now. “Every cop in the city has her photo. She’s not just going to vanish…”

***

But she did. Skye fucking vanished.

Two days passed, and the cops didn’t find her.

“He was clever,” Reese said as he guided Trace into the car. They were at the hospital’s exit. Finally. The doctors hadn’t wanted him to leave the hospital.

Fuck what they wanted.

He’d tried to leave the day before, and he’d torn open his wound. Blood had spurted and the nurses had sedated him. Again.

“The guy kept his face averted from the cameras,” Reese told him, “and he had a surgical cap and mask on the whole time.”

Trace slid into the car. The fresh stitches in his chest pulled, but he ignored the pain.

He could only focus on one thing then—Skye.

Reese slid into the front seat. The car eased into traffic.

“The cops think she’s already dead.” Trace had heard the whispers when Alex got his updates. As soon as they’d hit the forty-eight hour mark on Skye’s abduction, the cops had stopped looking for a live body.

“It’s…it’s been a long time, Trace,” Reese said softly. “A lot can happen during all those hours…”

Trace’s hands fisted. He didn’t want to imagine what had happened to Skye. “She’s okay.” He had to think that way. Had to think of her being alive. Because if he let the fear take over…I’ll lose my damn mind. “I’m going to find her.” He’d already reassigned every agent that he had.

Finding Skye was their priority. He’d been pulling the strings and starting the search for her even when the doctors had been sewing him back up.

Reese slanted a fast glance his way when the vehicle stopped at a red light. “We’ve got eyes on the choreographer and the doctor in NY. Both guys have been going to work, business as usual for them.”

It wasn’t business as fucking usual.

“If one of them had her…the guy would still be with her.”

If she’s alive. Trace heard the words that Reese didn’t say.

“Could just be that it’s not them. Her stalker could be anyone.” Reese kept talking as he drove them through the Chicago streets. “Some freak who saw her dance and fixated on her.”